


Four out of Five

by himynameisv



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [6]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bombs, Concussions, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, POV Matt Murdock, Poisoning, Tags Are Hard, Timeline What Timeline, author has no idea what she's doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29539191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/himynameisv/pseuds/himynameisv
Summary: Or, 4 times Matt does things without sight, and 1 time he absolutely can't.FEBUWHUMP PROMPT #18: "I CAN'T SEE"
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Avengers Team
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2142768
Comments: 10
Kudos: 151
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	Four out of Five

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Okay, I took this one in a kinda weird direction? Lol.

**I.**

The Avengers were in Hell's Kitchen.

_The Avengers were in Hell's Kitchen._

"What are you doing in Hell's Kitchen?" he asked gruffly, jumping down in front of them from his perch on a nearby building.

"Jesus," a man muttered, stumbling back with a distinct metal whirring sound. Tony Stark - Iron Man - then.

He smirked. "Not quite."

There was a woman in the back, based on the swish of her hair and her curves, with two guns on her belt, another on her ankle, a dagger in her left boot, and a whole other assortment of weapons Matt didn't want to go into: Natasha Romanoff, the Russian spy. The man next to her held some sort of bow, and had a slim container swung over his back holding an assortment of...sticks? Arrows, they were arrows. So he was Clint Barton - Hawkeye.

And that meant the physically imposing man holding a weirdly sounding shield (What kind of metal was that?) at the front of the group was Captain America. (Matt was admittedly glad they seemed to be missing the two from their group responsible for the most property damage.)

"We're not trying to do any harm here," Captain America said in a firm voice.

Matt raised an eyebrow they could not see. "You've done a lot of damage to the infrastructure in your past fights, to people's _homes_."

Hawkeye took a step towards him. "Hey. You're Daredevil, right? Seen you on the local news."

Matt crossed his arms. "So?"

"Look, we got intel of three bombs planted here in your city. You wanna protect it?" He paused, but Matt didn't give him an answer. Hawkeye grimaced; or, at least, Matt thought he did. Either that or a weird attempt at a smile. "Look, we can help each other. Split up, find the bombs, make sure people don't get hurt. Can't hurt to have one more person."

"Fine," Matt grit out after a few seconds. Great. He was working with actual _superheroes_ now.

Hawkeye's heart rate actually spiked in...excitement? Satisfaction? Some positive reaction, though why there would be one was beyond him.

"Great," Stark said. "Anyone ever told you you look ridiculous in that getup?"

"Anyone ever told you you look ridiculous in _yours_?" Not that he knew, but he could imagine.

"Okay, boys," the Black Widow intervened, "we need to go scour the place for some bombs. Daredevil and I will go south; the rest of you go up north."

Matt was infinitely unsure about this idea because he was fairly certain she wanted to interrogate him or something, but he went with it anyways, and soon the two of them were alone, running from building to building, from empty warehouse to empty warehouse, trying to find a bomb.

These bombs didn't tick, which was unfortunate, because his super hearing could've been very useful.

And then - an explosion, propelling him backwards into a crumbling brick wall. He coughed, and slumped at the base of it, moving his hands over the ground beneath him.

His ears were ringing, shouts and alarms muffled. Not completely, no. He must've not been very close to it.

The wall behind him seemed to still be intact, despite its fragility. He could smell gasoline in the air. Had the bomb been in a car? There weren't any large chunks of concrete or stone surrounding him, characterizing a relatively small explosion.

He didn't smell any blood in the air (that wasn't his). Good. That meant nobody was hurt, right?

Right?

A person, in front of him. Waving, gesturing, saying something.

He stood up quickly, reaching out a hand to brace against the wall as the world seemed to tilt on its axis. "You okay?" the Black Widow asked, tapping his shoulder. He grimaced.

"Fine," he said, hopefully not too loudly.

She seemed to notice his slight hearing loss, leaning closer to his ear. "We were told the other explosions would get progressively larger."

Oh, wasn't that great.

They continued stumbling around, avoiding police cars and hopelessly looking for another bomb before it exploded. Why did they have to be in Hell's Kitchen? Why couldn't he fucking hear the bombs?

Why was his head still swimming?

The others were talking rapidly through their comms, and he could only hear bits and pieces.

He must've gotten into range of _someone_ , though, because suddenly Captain America was screaming, "I found a bomb!" and he was running towards the voice. Wait 'til Foggy heard about all of this: teaming up with the Avengers? Not awesome, at all, despite how he would react.

He entered a warehouse and found the Captain knelt in a corner in front of a definitely _not_ beeping explosive. Damn it.

"Found the last one," Stark said through the comms. Matt sighed in relief.

Captain America turned his head towards him to probably look at him, maybe giving him a weird look, maybe not. Before he could say anything, Stark said, "Disarmed it. Pretty easy. If yours is like mine there are going to be seven wires. Snip the blue one."

Matt was knelt right next to him, so he definitely noticed when his heart rate sped up concerningly. "All the wires are the same color!" Steve shouted.

Oh, that was probably bad.

Stark seemed to stay calm. Maybe he was a machine after all. "Wait, okay. See the one leading from the antenna looking thingy to the yellow light?"

"Yeah," Captain America said, heart rate slowing down. Matt relaxed minutely.

"Cut that one."

A slight _shnick_ sound. "Done."

A sigh on the other end of the line. "No more remote detonating. Woohoo."

Beeping. Matt frowned. "Wait, it started beeping! Tony!"

"Relax. It's a timer set for 10 minutes. I'll get there in plenty of time."

"It says _30_ _seconds_." His heart rate was racing now, and Matt was willing to bet _his_ was, too.

"Well shit. Shit." Matt could hear the sound of firing repulsors through the comms, along with quick breaths and running. He wished he could hear where they were in the borough, but the comms would have to do for now. "Cut the wire leading from the microprocessor to the-"

"I don't know what that is!" Captain America was terrible at this. In all honesty, Matt didn't know what that was, either.

"I don't know how to explain it!" And now everyone was panicking. Matt's bubble of sound exploded so that now he could hear three hearts beating rapidly towards them, but not nearly close enough.

"Get out of there, or cut a random wire! Pretty sure your shield will protect you!"

Captain America was frozen, thinking of the best course of action, and as the beeping got steadily faster, Matt thought, _fuck it_. "Gimme it," he muttered, snatching the blade from his strong grip.

He put his hands on the bomb - on the _wires_ \- and cut the one that seemed to conduct the most heat.

He sensed the Captain stiffen beside him, and braced for an explosion.

Nothing happened.

"Oh thank god," he breathed out, leaning back to lay on the floor, exhausted.

The Captain's breaths were still slowing. "Bomb defused," he said breathlessly, interrupting the flow of words coming from his teammates.

He turned back to look at Matt, impressed? Suspicious? Grateful?

A swish of air. Something in front of him. A hand. He grabbed it with his uninjured one, and was hauled up by strong arms.

"That was good work," he said to him.

Matt nodded tiredly. "No problem." Yeah, seriously. That had almost been a complete guess. They could've been blown to a pulp by now.

"I'm sure, after this, you'd be welcomed to work with us."

Matt shook his head. "Yeah, no. I'll just...stay here." And sleep, for a thousand years, or at least until he had to wake up tomorrow (Today?) to meet with Mrs. Rivera regarding her case.

"Are you sure?" the Captain asked, and his heart just beat _sincere_ , _sincere_ , _sincere_.

He'd never been part of a team before.

He nodded anyways. "If you ever find trouble in Hell's Kitchen, you'll be sure to find me," he assured him.

Rogers nodded, or shook his head, but probably nodded.

"Now get out of my city."

**II.**

A group of muggers and murderers Matt could deal with.

A group of assassins Matt could not.

"Where the hell did they even come from?" he asked absolutely nobody, in between flipping one over and knocking the other out with a well-timed punch to the face.

"We've been following them around the country," Romanoff answered from somewhere to his right. "Decided Hell's Kitchen was their next stop."

"Of course," he muttered. It was just his luck.

"On the upside, we get to gather more evidence to support that you are _not_ in fact the actual Devil," Barton said from his perch on some rooftop.

That actually gave Matt pause. "I'm not the actual Devil," he said slowly. Did - did they really think that?

"Holy shit he should not have heard that," Stark muttered, probably because, now that he thought about it, Barton was pretty far away, and it wasn't like Matt had a comm.

"Still not the actual Devil," he reminded them, kicking one assassin in the chest and propelling him into the wall, only to turn around and get stabbed.

By a thin needle, one he hadn't sensed.

He gasped, roughly pushing the assassin away and tearing the syringe from his arm. He collapsed to the ground as _something_ flowed through his veins. "Somebody drugged me," he called out to anyone who would listen. He completely blamed Barton for this - for getting distracted. It was completely his fault.

"Who drugged you?" Rogers asked, the smack of flesh against unforgiving metal giving away his location.

"Some...assassin," he said breathlessly, tripping some other assassin who wanted to finish him off.

"Gee. I didn't know," Stark said, amidst Matt's ongoing battle with the _one_ _assassin_. This was pathetic.

"What'd he say?" Barton asked.

"Said some assassin drugged him. You didn't see?"

Barton swore under his breath. "Sorry. He was out of view."

"How bad is it?" Romanoff asked from wherever she was. Now that they knew he had super hearing, he supposed they were using it to their full advantage.

He finally shoved the assassin to the ground. "Still standing, at least." The world was spinning. "Not for much longer."

Somebody ducked under his arm to prop him up with their shoulder, a very broad shoulder - Rogers. "It's pretty bad," he said into the comms, and Matt scowled.

"Can someone figure out which one of these guys attacked him?" Stark asked, landing beside them with a _clang_. Apparently the fight was over.

"Why do you need to know?" he gasped out, the pain slowly growing as adrenaline left him. Were drugs supposed to hurt this much?

"The poison - that's what we've been looking for," Romanoff informed him. _Poison?!_ "We need to know which one of them used it."

"Uh..." He trailed off, trying to clear his mind. This was a problem. He couldn't very well tell them what their heartbeat sounded like, could he? "It was..." A swish of hair, the smell of flowers. "A woman, I think."

"There's more than one woman here, Satan," Stark said.

"Nnh-" He swallowed. "N-not-"

"Yeah, yeah. We know. Hey. Stay awake."

He shook his head a little. "Okay. Um..." A swish of hair - no, not quite. Hair's freer than that. The hair...was tied together?

"Dude, did you not see who drugged you?" Barton asked incredulously as he approached from...from somewhere.

"Was distracted," he muttered, closing his eyes even though it wouldn't make a difference. "She...her hair was in braids, think...two braids." A small _clink_ near her sternum. "And a necklace. Somethin' 'round her neck, least."

"That's good," Rogers said quietly, and it was absurdly comforting.

He heard everyone else walk away from them, looking for her, felt Rogers prop him up against a wall. "Found her!" Romanoff called out from some distance away.

"Great," Matt breathed out. "M'gonna pass out n'."

He welcomed the darkness to the sound of their heartbeats spiking in alarm. He was, admittedly, touched?

**III.**

"Bruce! Daredevil hit his head again," Clint said, almost like a sibling telling on his brother. Matt scowled.

"It's not that bad."

Bruce completely ignored him. "You know I'm not that kind of doctor, right?"

Clint shrugged, air swishing over his shoulders. "He's stubborn." And then he left. Great.

Matt uncomfortably made his way to the patient's bed in the middle of the room and sat at the edge of it, facing Bruce. Bruce's heartbeat was slower, steadier, calmer than all the others', which was surprising considering his ability to turn into the Hulk.

Bruce shook his head, mock-disappointed. Matt didn't have a concussion, which is how he knew that. Matt DID NOT have a concussion, thank you very much. "At this rate, you're gonna beat Clint at his record of getting hurt," he lamented, putting on some latex gloves and stepping towards Matt.

Matt grimaced. "I'm fine."

"Uh-huh," Bruce muttered, and he almost sounded like Claire. "I can't take off your mask to check for abrasions, can I?"

"Nope." Matt really wanted to get out of here.

"Well, Jarvis can give you a head scan so you don't need to take it off. Are you fine with that?"

Huh. He hadn't known AIs could do that. "Sure."

A few minutes later, Bruce had determined that there was no bleeding and no swelling of the brain. "Great. Does that mean I can go now?" He didn't mean to sound so impolite to someone trying to help him, but he really didn't want to be here.

He also had court in, like, an hour. So there was that.

Bruce chuckled. "Not yet. Any blacking out or double vision?"

Matt smirked. "Nope."

"Dizziness?"

He remembered having to lean on Clint to get here, and nearly colliding into the floor after missing the door. "No?"

Bruce shook his head with an exasperated sigh. And again, Matt could tell that he had shaken his head instead of nodding, because there was a minute difference between the air flowing around the face. If he _did_ have a concussion, he wouldn't have been able to tell.

See? Foolproof defense right there.

He didn't know why everyone was so concerned (didn't know why it made him shy away).

"I can't check your eyes, so I'll just have to trust you on that front."

Matt hummed. "Sure."

"But how many fingers am I holding up?" Bruce asked quickly.

Matt smiled. His hands were still wrapped around his clipboard. "None."

"What's your name?"

"M-" He paused, frowning. "You're sneaky. You did that on purpose, didn't you?" He was not pouting. _He was not pouting._

Bruce laughed, and Matt just couldn't stay mad at him because it was _Bruce_. (When had he gotten so close to these people?) "Worth a try. What's your _hero_ name, then?"

"Not a hero," Matt protested.

Bruce just sighed, smile apparently still in place because that breath had sounded weird. "Vigilante, then."

"Daredevil," Matt said promptly.

"Good. You remember who you are," he said, almost to himself. He held up his hand. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Matt frowned, condensing his World on Fire so that he could focus on the air flow around Bruce's fingers, the veins in his hands. "Three."

"And now?"

Nothing had changed. No sound of extending or retracting fingers. "Still three."

"Great." Bruce clapped him on the shoulder. "You're free to go. Try not to get hurt anytime soon."

Matt smiled. "I give you no promises."

**IV.**

The problem with working with the Avengers was that their enemies became his.

Namely, Hydra.

Matt was probably going to have a small mental breakdown once he got back to his apartment, but for now he was going to block out the pain and wait for the Avengers to get here and rescue him like a damsel in distress.

"What do you know about the weapon?!" the guy hissed, spit flying into his face.

He grimaced, ignoring the broken bones and cuts and - and there had been electricity, hadn't there? "I don't know anything," he said for the hundredth time. He didn't know anything about Hydra because he didn't care about the big stuff like that, okay? He would only get involved if they infiltrated Hell's Kitchen.

Or decided to kidnap and beat him up, apparently.

"I do not believe you," the guy said. He had some accent. German, maybe? Wasn't Hydra originally a bunch of Nazis?

"Well I dunno what to tell you," Matt said tiredly. The guy punched him in the face, and he felt blood trickle down his chin from his broken nose.

He could hear his heartbeat, and knew the guy was telling the truth, in that he didn't believe him. Which was unfortunate, because the guy couldn't do the same for him.

Right on time, a door at the opposite end of the room burst open with an almighty _crash_. Matt winced as the sound rang through his ears. "Poor door," he muttered, spitting out some blood. Oh, Foggy and Karen were going to have a _fit_.

His apparent savior swung a...block? It hit the guy and he went down, unconscious.

No, wait. Matt blinked. It was a hammer. This was _Thor_.

"Ah, my new comrade! It is an honor to finally meet you! The others have talked much about you!" Thor boomed, swinging his hammer again (Was he emotionally attached to that thing?) to break his cuffs.

"Uh...nice to meet you, too," he said cautiously, standing up and only wavering slightly. Great. That meant he could walk out of here on his own two feet.

"Thor, you got him?" Natasha asked through the comms.

"I do." Thor patted him on the back, causing him to stumble forwards a few steps. He was starting to feel wholly inadequate. "He is mostly unharmed."

Matt looked down at himself - or, well, mentally went over himself. Broken bones, bruises, cuts...so, the usual, really.

"Great. We need help out here. There's too many of them," Natasha said, urgent.

Matt frowned, slowly following Thor out the door to a jumble of sounds and heartbeats. He winced, resisting the urge to cover his ears. "Do you have a plan?" Thor asked him. It was nice to be needed.

"Some kind of diversion?" he offered, trying not to lean too heavily against the wall. Thor seemed to notice anyways, steadying him with a hand to his shoulder.

"I can use my hammer, withdraw the electricity from the building."

That seemed like a bad idea. "Why would we do that? How would that help?"

A swish of clothing; Thor had shrugged. "It would turn off the lights. Hydra would not be able to fight well in the dark, but Stark has his suit, and the Captain his good vision." Matt wouldn't bet against Natasha, either. Clint would probably manage. Probably. Maybe.

"So you're taking the electricity from the building, but not Tony's suit or Clint's hearing aids, right?" he asked, because that would be bad.

"No," Thor clarified, "just from the building." He turned towards him. "Can you fight in the dark?"

Matt smiled, and it was all Daredevil.

Later, when all the Hydra agents lay bleeding and unconscious on the floor (Matt tried not to think about the heartbeats that had stopped, albeit not from his hand), and Clint had stopped bitching and moaning about fighting blind, Matt leaned against him, using him as a needed support.

Clint patted his shoulder. "You good, man?"

Matt hummed. "Think I'm in one piece."

Clint laughed. "Yeah, no. You're going to the med bay."

Matt sighed. "I know."

They stumbled to the Quinjet, 'cause apparently they weren't in New York anymore. Matt winced. How many days of work had he missed? How were Foggy and Karen?

"How'd you do it?" Clint asked, easing him down into a seat and then taking the place beside him.

"Do what?" he murmured, sensing the others sitting around them and Bruce walking towards him, heart rate slightly higher than normal.

"Dude, you were like a freaking ninja. Even Nat doesn't do that well in the dark." Something smacked into Clint's arm. Matt was too tired to figure out what it was. "Ow! But you don't have super vision like Steve, do you?"

"Super vision doesn't help me much in the dark," Steve interjected from wherever he was sitting. "I was barely seeing anything."

"But you were still seeing _something_ , unlike me, the sitting duck," Clint protested.

Matt lifted a hand to pat his shoulder, but ended up hitting his cheek instead. "There, there," he said.

He was pretty sure Clint rolled his eyes. Pretty sure. "But seriously, how'd you do it?"

"You gotta leave me some secrets." He winced as Bruce started stitching up one of his deeper cuts.

"I'm glad you're alright, Daredevil," Steve said warmly. "Sorry you got involved with this whole mess." Matt smiled, because his heart beat _truth_ , _truth_ , _truth_.

"S'fine."

"Aw, come on. Narrow it down, at least," Clint said. Matt was slowly losing track of the conversation.

"Give the man a break. It's probably been a rough couple of days," Tony argued, voice surprisingly filled with concern.

He faded away to the sound of their slowing heartbeats, the feeling of _safety_ enveloping him and whisking him away.

**V.**

Matt stared. Or, well, looked intensely at the space in front of him.

He had apparently been upgraded to occasional, full-on mission planning with the Avengers, instead of quick, impromptu meetings.

There was a lot of information involved with planning and conducting a new mission. The problem was that Stark tended to use tablets to distribute said information, or holograms to outline their plan of attack.

The problem with tablets and holograms was that - uh...Matt couldn't exactly see.

"So what do you think, Daredevil?" Steve asked, turning towards him. Matt fidgeted with his hands under the table where they couldn't see, but he was pretty sure Nat knew, anyways.

"It's nice. A solid plan." He had been able to bullshit his way through previous meetings, so he was...65% certain he could do it now.

They stared. He could _feel_ their collective gazes on him. "You sure? 'Cause you haven't seem to read the mission notes," Tony commented, leaning forward on the table.

Matt grimaced. He'd fought assassins and disarmed a bomb; he beat people up generally every night.

 _This_ is what got him?

"When have we not had a solid plan?" he asked, deflecting.

"You never seem to give much input, though," Clint muttered. Okay. That was it. Clint was no longer his secret favorite.

"Uh-huh. So what is _that_?" Tony lifted his hand up to point at the air - at a _hologram_ , that Matt could definitely not see.

"What is what?"

"What does that say?"

Matt swallowed. "Mission plan to infiltrate Hydra base?"

A pause. A few spikes in heart rate. "You...actually got it half correct, but not completely," Tony added.

Matt could feel the blood rush into his face. "...What's the point of this?"

"The point is-"

"Okay, what Tony is trying to say," Bruce interrupted calmly, "is that it's okay if you can't read. It's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, and you can always learn."

"Like those adults who learn piano later in life because they didn't have the opportunity to do so as a kid," Clint interjected, and _oh no_. They actually thought he was illiterate.

"I can read," he grit out. _Just not when it's on a screen._

"It's fine if you can't," Steve tried to placate. Matt resisted the urge to sink into the floor. "When I first woke up after 70 years in the ice, I didn't know how to use all of this new technology. It was overwhelming. But eventually, with people's help, I learned." Matt grimaced. He was talking to him like he was a kid.

"Yup! Now Capsicle can send a text message! Woohoo! Cause for celebration!"

He could hear the blood rush into Steve's face, too.

"It's - it's not _that_ ," Matt said, trying to build up their image of him again. "I - I _can_ read-"

"We're just trying to help here, man. Why won't you let us help?" Clint asked, and _oh_ , he was starting to grate on Matt's nerves.

"I can't see!" he blurted out. Silence. A few spiked heart rates.

"What?" Tony asked, voice sharp. Matt winced, as if it could physically hurt him.

"I can't see. I'm blind," he admitted. He took off his mask, let them see his unfocused eyes. He fidgeted with the mask a little, knowing they would treat him differently now that they knew the truth.

"Oh my god, you're blind? That's - that's actually so cool, all the stuff you can do," Clint said after a few moments, rushed. Matt frowned. That hadn't been what he'd been expecting.

"How _can_ you do all the stuff you've done?" Nat asked. There was no judgment in her voice.

Matt swallowed, somehow more nervous here than he was in court. "The-" He cleared his throat. "The same chemicals that blinded me enhanced my other senses. A lot."

"Oh! So kind of like echolocation!" Bruce said.

"Yeah," Matt said faintly, "kind of like that."

"I am definitely more appreciative now of all the things you've done, Daredevil," Steve said diplomatically. Something in Matt's heart _sang_ and he was totally telling Foggy about all of this later.

"Matt," he blurted out.

"Hmm?"

"My name's Matt." It felt right.

"Well, _Matt_ ," Tony started, "I...am actually really sorry about assuming you were illiterate. That was probably a huge blow to the ego-"

"No ego bigger than yours," Matt quipped.

He laughed. "I deserve that."

"Yeah," Matt agreed, a hesitant smile on his face.

Clint reached out to pat him on the shoulder. "Not trying to judge, but why didn't you tell us before?"

 _I didn't want you to look at me differently._ "Uh...secret identity, I guess. Not that many blind men in Hell's Kitchen."

Of course, that meant Tony immediately searched him up. "Matthew Murdock, attorney at law," he read aloud.

It startled a laugh out of Steve. "You're a _lawyer_? I did not expect that."

Matt shrugged. "What can I say? I live to be unpredictable."

"Your middle name's _Michael_? Triple M, you poor thing," Tony lamented.

Matt laughed. It was so much easier to laugh around them now. "Okay, okay. Enough poking into my life. Back to the mission. I'll sue you for not being ADA-compliant _after_ the meeting."

" _What?_ "

Eventually, the laughs faded away, and they continued discussing Hydra, how they were still alive, what they wanted this time. He closed the tablet and set it down on the table in front of him, content in listening to the bits of information passing by.

Nat kicked him from under the table. "Ow," he said, even though it hadn't hurt that much, and turned his head in her direction.

She held a file of papers in her hands, and slid it across the table towards him. He frowned, opening the file slowly, and running his fingers along the ink.

No, not ink. Bumps, raised bumps.

Braille.

He smiled.


End file.
